Feckenham, John de

Feckenham, John de (fĕk`ənəm), 1518?–1585, English abbot. He became a Benedictine monk at Evesham, studied at Oxford, and later served as chaplain to the bishop of Worcester and to Edmund Bonner, bishop of London. Feckenham's sympathies were Roman Catholic, and his fortunes varied under the successive Tudor monarchs. He was confined to the Tower of London by Edward VI and kept there, except for brief periods, until Mary I became queen. He became chaplain and confessor to Mary and abbot of the reconstituted abbey of Westminster. After Elizabeth I's accession (1558), although his previous relations with her had been friendly, Feckenham spent most of the rest of his life in confinement for his refusal to recant his Roman Catholic beliefs.